A discrete‐time model for perishable inventory systems

We study a discrete-time (s, S) perishable inventory model with geometric inter‐demand times and batch demands. With a zero lead time and allowing backlogs, we can construct a multi‐dimensional Markov chain to model the inventory‐level process and obtain a closed‐formcost function. Numerical computation for the discrete‐time models is quite manageable. Our numerical results reveal some good properties of the cost function. By comparing our results with results from the corresponding continuous‐time models, we may also conclude that discrete‐time models may be used to approximate their continuous‐time counterparts effectively.